It’s Thanksgiving Weekend, here in Canada, and our turkey is ready for the oven. :-)
Though Thanksgiving is officially tomorrow, we decided to have a quiet family dinner today. A large family dinner is being planned for later in the month.
The turkey was brined overnight, rubbed with lemon halves (which were then tucked into the cavity) and covered with bacon.
A trick I learned from my late mother-in-law. :-D
The Re-Farmer
Today, my daughters cracked open a new jar of mayonnaise that we bought just a couple of days ago, and discovered the seal was cracked.
Which means it had been sitting in our cupboard, with the vacuum seal broken.
So, that got thrown out.
Since we weren’t about to drive into town just to buy a jar of mayonnaise, and I happened to have the ingredients, I made a quick batch.
This is an easy mayonnaise recipe from the home economics cookbook I got from when I was in junior high school – a cookbook that is still one of my most used, because it’s filled with basic recipes like this one.
I also have these handy little pint canning jars to use to store it, too. :-) Since this is an uncooked version, I sterilized them first.
The ingredients are pretty basic; dry mustard, salt, paprika (that is the amount in the recipe; when I’ve made it in the past, I usually used just a pinch), a large egg, vinegar and oil.
While you can adjust how much paprika is used, to taste, the quantities of the rest of the ingredients should stay the same. That doesn’t mean you can’t get creative, though! I’ve made this using olive oil, and avocado oil can be used as well. You can use one egg, or two egg yolks. Instead of white vinegar, try another light vinegar, such as white wine vinegar. I wouldn’t use a dark vinegar, such as balsamic, as it would be overpowering, but go ahead and try it, if you want. I’ve even successfully used prepared mustard instead of dry (not the bright yellow kind, but there are a lot of flavourful Dijon mustards out there that will work quite well).
The important thing about making mayonnaise is in creating the emulsion. The original recipe was written before electric mixers were common, and the instructions say to add the oil, one drop at a time, while beating vigorously until it thickens! Even with an electric mixer, it’s important to add the oil slowly. Just a thin drizzle.
The need to thoroughly beat in the oil, as it is slowly being added, requires a bowl that is small and deep. I used my 4 cup measuring cup, because even the bowl that came with my stand mixer was too big for a single recipe. If I had doubled it, it would have worked fine.
If you are using a blender, immersion blender or food processor, however, the blades turn so quickly, it emulsifies before you know it! Just add the oil in a steady stream.
Here is the original recipe, with my modifications added in [brackets].
Mayonnaise
1 tsp dry mustard [can use equal amount of prepared mustard, such as a dijon]
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp paprika [can be reduced to taste, or none at all for an almost white mayonnaise]
1 large egg or 2 yolks
1 cup salad oil [can be any vegetable oil, olive oil, or avocado oil]
2 Tbsp vinegar [white vinegar or any light vinegar of choice]
Hint: let the egg come to room temperature, first.
Note: if the emulsion refuses to form and “breaks” (one of the reasons buying mayonnaise can be preferred!), it might still be rescued. Take an egg yolk and beat it in another small, deep bowl. Then, slowly add the broken mayonnaise, a little bit at a time, while beating vigorously.
If that still doesn’t work… well… there’s always the grocery store! :-D
The Re-Farmer
Well, something new to us, anyhow!
One of our errands yesterday was at the international grocery store in the city. Right at the doorway, their new seasonal fruit or vegetable display table had jackfruit.
We have never tried jackfruit before.
My husband picked up Amazon Prime, since we have all of 2 channels on our Farmer Vision, and they both kinda suck, so he could watch movies or TV. I tried going through their movies and found next to nothing that interested me, so I went looking through the TV shows and found A Taste of History. I’ve made it to season four, and have really been enjoying it. I also happened to watch an episode recently that included jackfruit.
So we decided to buy some.
Not a whole one – those things are massive! But they did have some in pre-cut chunks.
After a busy morning that included a dump run and finally moving the rest of the pile of trees from beside the driveway gate, we decided to give the jackfruit a try with lunch.
Thinking of what I saw on the show, I got the pieces cleaned out.
There is a lot for the compost out of that one wedge!
As a taste test, all we did was give it a try, as is.
I admit to come trepidation, as I’ve read of it as being similar to durian. My older daughter and I tried a durian drink once, long ago, and were pretty horrified. More by the fleshy texture than the flavour, which we were no fan of, all on its own!
This, however, has a very light pineapple flavour. No acidity to it, really. The texture is much denser; almost rubbery. It was the texture that put off my younger daughter. My older daughter likes it, while my husband flat out refused to try it! :-D
Only after did I look up what to do with jackfruit, and read that I apparently should have worn gloves, or oiled the jackfruit, the cutting knife and cutting surface, because of its sticky sap that’s hard to clean up.
I had no problem cleaning up.
I also read that it makes a good meat substitute. Particularly as a pulled “pork.” With the texture of it, I can almost see how that would work.
Nah. Who am I kidding? The texture isn’t at all like meat, and it just tastes like pineapple without the acidity. Maybe that changes with cooking, but I am doubtful.
With this small wedge, we didn’t bother doing anything to it, and my older daughter and I shared it, raw.
From what I’ve read, the seeds can be boiled like potatoes, for about half and hour, and eaten. There wasn’t enough in the wedge we got to bother trying that.
Final call: 2:2 for and against. So while we might get a small wedge again some day, we’ll probably never pick up a whole jackfruit.
I’m glad we tried it, though. :-)
The Re-Farmer
After all our running around in town today, we decided a pizza night was in order.
This one’s mine.
Alfredo Pizza. One of the best I’ve ever had, with broccoli, chicken and alfredo sauce.
Sooooo good!
Normally, today would have been our day to go into the city for our monthly shop, but that will likely happen the day after tomorrow. I will be out much of tomorrow, as I’ve booked an oil change, and I’m asking them to check the wheel bearings and take it for a spin, to see if the mystery noise will start. We’ll see what they say after their inspection, before we make any trips to the city!
I should be able to visit my mother, as well, since she lives just a couple of blocks from the garage I’m going to. I will have to try to explain to her – again – that when the home care workers come in for a meal assist, they can only heat up prepared food. They don’t have the time to cook food from scratch, which it turns out she’s still expecting them to do. Plus, apparently, she was being very rude to them about it, too. My older brother, who is their contact person, got a phone call about her not having prepared food for them to heat up. Which we all had made sure there was lots of. He was able to get through to our mom (he’s not even in this province right now!) and was able to establish that yes, there is still lots of food in the fridge, and even more in the freezer. It basically just needs to be assembled into meals and heated – and my jars of chili are still there, too, which need nothing extra done. She was just being a pain, demanding of them more than they are supposed to do. :-(
Years ago, my mother worked as a home care worker, but things have changed a great deal since then. She refuses to accept that. Still, you’d think she would at least treat them better! :-(
Well, she is slated for a total of 14 days of home care. She should be recovered enough to be able to do a lot more herself, by the time the two weeks are up. Which should be early next week. She surgical area is healing well, and her mobility is quite good (especially for someone who is 87 and is in need of a knee replacement!). She gets tired easily, which I would expect to continue for some weeks, yet, but she’s getting her 4 daily walks in, as the doctor ordered. It’s basically just down the hall to the lobby area and back, but that’s enough for now. She’s really doing very well, even if she complains about what a difficult time she’s had! :-) She just has nothing in her personal experience to compare it to. She was totally convinced she was going to die, though that was partly due to her racism. She had the best hernia surgeon in the province, but he’s from Nigeria, so… Sadly, it turns out he’s had problems with his own mother, back in Nigeria, who thinks him being a doctor in Canada is wasting his life! Poor guy! At least my brother has made a point of telling him how much he is appreciated, for taking such good care of our mother.
Ah, well. We shall see how it goes, tomorrow!
The Re-Farmer
Last night, I made up some chili in the slow cooker, for ourselves and my mother when she gets home form the hospital. You can see my recipe here, though I slightly modified it this time. I added a rutabaga with the vegetables, an extra can of beans, and used two cans of crushed tomatoes, instead of one, plus tomato paste. I also skipped the cream. Lots of fibre and iron in here, which my mother will need for the next while.
This morning, I put up 12 pint sized jars of the chili.
I don’t have the equipment to pressure can these, but these are not intended for long term storage. Done this way, they should last 6 weeks or more, in the fridge.
I found a flat bottomed, rectangular roasting pain with rack while cleaning the Old Kitchen. It was the perfect size to hold all the jars. I put the jars on the rack and, after setting kettles to boil water to scald them, added hot tap water to the roasting rack, so there would be no chance of anything cracking. I scalded the lids and rings in a stainless steel bowl, then poured boiling water into all the jars to disinfect them all. I scalded my jar funnel, too. I am so glad I picked that thing up!!
Once the jars were scalded and emptied, I could use the roasting pan to carry them all together to the crock pot. I left the hot water in the pan. To fill the jars, I would put some chili in, then use a (scalded) fork to poke at it and get out any air pockets, fill it the rest of the way (with a half inch head space) then poke at it again to get rid of the air pockets. After removing the funnel, I popped a lid in place, then moved on to the next one. Using the roasting rack made it much more organized.
Once filled, I put on the rings, but did not tighten them all the way, then moved them all onto some paper towel to cool slowly. Once fully cooled, I’ll tighten the rings the rest of the way. Not too tight, though. I don’t want my mother to have a hard time opening them!
This took up about half of our 8 quart crock pot of chili.
So I had chili for breakfast. :-D
The Re-farmer
Today we made a trip into the city to play tourist, run a few errands, then pick up some stuff for my husband’s birthday.
It made for a very long, but enjoyable, day.
We started off with an early lunch, taking advantage of being in the city. It turns out that Le Burger Week started today (I’d never heard of it before), so I tried the burger offering at an Asian fusion type place.
I can’t even remember what it was called, but it was SO good! Even better after I realized it had jalapeño in it, and took it out. I love the flavour, but don’t do spicy well at all, due to damage to my tongue. :-( That spiral cut potato in the background was delicious, too!
It was really hard to choose from the menu, though. I had originally intended to have a bento box, and as good as the burger was, I’m still not sure I made the right choice.
My daughters both ended up choosing a sushi and sashimi bento, while our guest chose the shrimp one I had been eye-balling. The only sushi we have available out here is grocery store sushi. I’ve tried it. It’s pretty… dry.
Choices like this is one of the things we do miss about city living!!!
While playing tourist, one of the places we visited as a prairie garden filled with native plants.
It looks a lot like our outer yard, except with all the varieties in a much smaller space. :-D Mind you, there were a few things I’ve never seen before, but most of it was quite familiar. I’ll post some of the better pictures I got, later on.
As we ran errands before heading out, my darling daughters found, then got, something for me.
Meet my new friend.
I think I will call him Yorick.
Alas, he is too big for my dash. As I write this, he sits on my printer, looking at me.
He is soft and squishy and marvelous.
The Re-Farmer
I’ve picked our first grapes today!
Most of them are like this, still.
But I was able to gather some ripe ones.
They are so tiny, and each grape has a single seed in it.
Growing among the spirea, I was doing a fair bit of digging among the leaves, and kept finding more and more bunches. Few were fully ripe, but there are a lot in there!
This bowl full will be enjoyed as is. Over the next while, I hope to harvest enough to make some jelly or something with it. :-)
The Re-Farmer
Heading out early to drive my daughter to work, we found this…
A bit of a surprise. We must have had some wind last night, for both of them to be open. One of the doors is kept closed from the inside by a piece of wood that pivots, and uses the upper door frame to hold the door closed. It isn’t used as often, so it’s a lot stiffer than the two on the other door (one to close it from the outside, the other to close it from the inside), which are much looser.
Sadly, my first thought was not that it was opened by the wind, but that someone had gone in. Nothing inside seems to have changed, that I can tell, so it must have been the wind.
Early this afternoon, I got a phone call from my mom and ended up going over to visit her.
She had apples for me.
Someone had left several boxes of apples at the senior’s centre she lives in (things like that happen fairly regularly, with different kinds of produce), so she took some home. She’d already cooked down a whole bunch into apple sauce and realized she had taken more than she could use for herself. So she wanted me to take them.
Now I have to figure out what to do with them, myself. :-D
I’m thinking of making jelly. I’ve never made jelly before.
I don’t actually like jelly, but the rest of the family enjoys jams and jellies. :-)
I could also break out the juicer.
Nah. It’s a pain in the butt to clean. I’ll leave that for when we start harvesting our own apples.
It would probably be easier to make apple butter with them.
Time to look through my recipes. :-D
Whatever I do with them, it will wait until tomorrow at the earliest, since I will be finishing off the chokecherry vinegar I started last night.
The Re-Farmer
This evening, I headed over to pick some chokecherries.
When I got there, I found far fewer than I expected to!
The birds are well fed. :-D
Which works out. They eat the stuff I can’t reach, and I pick the stuff they have a harder time getting to.
The chokecherry trees along the north fence line are in between lilacs. As I came closer, I couldn’t help but notice a lot of white powder all over their leaves.
It’s dust from cars going by on the gravel road! This is what falls on the leaves on the south side of the bushes – the north side much be just covered!
It made for some rather dusty berries, too.
This is all I got from the two trees along the north fence line, and even a bit from the one tree by my mother’s raspberry bushes, on the south side of the garden area.
After giving them a couple of rinses in the bucket, I cleaned out the leaves, twigs and stems, then gave them a couple more washes.
As I write this, they are soaking in our ice cold well water to get the last of the floaty bits off.
Tomorrow, I will go over the recipes I found and decide what to do with them. After I measure how much I have. Definitely small batch preserving on this one.
I found this link with several recipes for different methods of chokecherry preserves. It calls for 10 cups of chokecherries to make a juice, which is then used in most of the other recipes. I definitely don’t have 10 cups. I do have enough for the chokecherry vinegar recipe, though. In fact, I could start that tonight and finish it tomorrow night.
I think that’s what I will do. :-D
The Re-Farmer
Just a bit of catch up from yesterday, since I shut down the computer when we heard a thunderstorm coming in. It ended up passing us by, but even so, it got pretty loud out there!
When doing my evening walk around the yard, I decided to head around the main garden area to check out the choke cherries.
There is one chokecherry tree on the south side of the garden, that my mother planted among the raspberries. It has very few berries on it; I don’t think it’s getting anywhere near enough sun in that location. The few it has are starting to turn a darker red.
This first photo is from one of the trees hidden among the lilacs along the north fence line.
This next photo is from a tree about 50 feet away.
These black ones are basically ripe.
Quite the difference between the two trees!
I’m not sure if we will be doing anything with them. My mom was suggesting making jam, but I am really not up to that. Especially for such a small amount of berries. I wouldn’t mind trying to make wine with them, but we don’t have the set up for that right now. They’re not the sort of thing you eat straight, though you certainly can. They’re more pit than berry. :-D
Anyhow.
Yesterday was our day to go into the city for the Costco shopping. It was a relatively small shop, though. My husband gets his disability payments at the end of the month, and gets both CPP Disability (from the government), which is a fairly small payment that comes in a few business days before the end of the month, and then his private insurance payment, which comes in on the last business day of the month. So we’ve been doing our monthly shop with the first one comes in, the paying the bills with the second one.
Not this month.
Because his CPAP died, we made sure to order that as soon as the money came in. It ended up costing about CDN$650, which is an incredibly good price. His insurance will reimburse a portion of that, but that won’t happen until next week, at the earliest.
Hopefully, the CPAP will come in quickly. Although the sleep apnea does not seem as severe as it was years ago, the affects are being felt. It’s not even the lack of oxygen, but the lack of REM sleep that can really cause problems. When he was first diagnosed, the specialist estimated my husband hadn’t had any REM sleep for at least a year. It almost killed him. So we don’t want to take any chances!
The CPAP was ordered on Friday and my husband got a shipping notice before the end of the day. However, the company can only guarantee shipping up until it gets to Canada. After that, it’s up to Canada Post. So the shipping estimate is 2-3 business weeks. !!!
I don’t expect it to take that long. Packages tend to get shipped faster than envelopes.
With that done, we basically did a half month shop, rather than a full month shop.
Now, I want to make one thing very clear.
I hate shopping.
Okay. Maybe “hate” is too strong of a word. Still, I really, really, really dislike shopping. I don’t like being around so many people, in crowded aisles, etc. Basically, everything about shopping, I dislike.
Which means a trip to Costco uses up all sort of spoons, until I’ve got nothing left but knives!
Which is why I like to have at least one of the girls with me. They make sure I don’t just turn around and leave half way through shopping. It’s much more pleasant with their company!
So we (both girls came along this time) did the Costco shopping, gassed up the van, and I even remembered to bring the jerry can to get premium gas for the riding mower (regular gas at Costco was $1.169, compared to $1.239 elsewhere, and premium was $1.269, so it was worth doing it there!).
Before the move, our usual routine was to do the Costco shopping for the big stuff, then go to a local grocery franchise for the non-bulk stuff. In the years we were away, that franchise expanded into the city here, but there are very few of them. The girls wanted to pick up something we knew was carried by this company. We did consider checking out a couple of the other grocery chains, but really don’t like them, so I looked up the nearest store of the one we do like. It turned out there was a location a convenient drive from the area we were in, so we decided to check it out.
Well now.
Did I mention I hate shopping?
When we got to the place, the first thing we saw were the extra signs. It was an “international” store, with online shopping. Of course, that had us joking about whether they delivered to where we live, out in the sticks. It also had a “kitchen” area.
Hmm.
Then we walked in.
Wow.
I must have looked like a country yokel that had come into the big city for the first time!
We couldn’t believe this place!
It was huge and open. The aisles were wide, and accessible (knowing so many wheelchair and walker users, it’s now automatic for me to assess aisle space and judge how well someone in a wheelchair would be able to navigate). The “kitchen” area had a wide variety of local and international foods, hot and fresh, with a lovely, well lit and welcoming seating area. They had several food “bars”, with the usual things like chicken wings, olives and Chinese food – and a perogie bar! There was a cheese island. Half the store was dedicated to international foods – three aisles were of just Filipino food.
Before the move, there were a couple of local grocery stores that had stuff we couldn’t find anywhere else. One was an Italian store that specialized in European imports. The other was a Chinese grocery store that included hot food take out/dine in areas (with some of the best bao I’ve ever tasted).
This store was like those two, plus the regular grocery store, merged into one.
It was heaven. A total joy to shop there!
We had to deliberately stop ourselves from going through all the international aisles, so we wouldn’t completely blow our budget!
We need to come back. With money. All three of us agreed that this store alone was worth the drive to the city to shop in.
Did I mention I hate shopping?
Not here!
I can’t wait to go back. And this time, we’ll plan on having lunch there, too!
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 